The Hundred Secret Senses

by Amy Tan

  “Wah! You talking too fast.”

  “Here, I’ll write it down for you.”

  Only afterward did I consider the irony of the whole matter: that I was helping Kwan with her illusions so that she could help Simon let go of his.

  Two weeks later, Kwan told me Toby had hit a jackpot. He had set a date with Elza for the night of the next full moon. Kwan said that people in the World of Yin were very bad about making appointments, because nobody used a calendar or a clock anymore. The best method was to watch the moon. That was why so many strange things happened when the moon was at its brightest, Kwan said: “Like porch light, telling you guests welcome-welcome, come inside.”

  I STILL FEEL GUILTY over how easy it was to fool Simon. It went like this.

  I mentioned to him we’d been invited to Kwan’s for dinner. He accepted. The moment we walked in her house, Kwan said, “Ohhhh, so good-looking.” As if he’d been prompted, Simon said to Kwan, “You’re kidding. You don’t look twelve years older than Olivia.” Then Kwan beamed and said, “Ohhhh, good manner too.”

  The curry wasn’t bad, the conversation wasn’t too painful. Kwan’s husband and her stepsons chatted excitedly about a fistfight they’d witnessed in the parking lot of Safeway. Throughout the dinner, Kwan did not act that weird, although she did ask Simon nosy questions about his parents. “Which one Chinese? Mother side. But not Chinese?. . . Ah, Hawaii-ah, I know, Chinese already premix. She do hula-hula dance? . . . Ah. Dead? So young? Ai, so sad. I see hula-hula once on TV, hip go ’round like wash machine, wavy hands like flying bird. . . .”

  When Simon went to the bathroom, she gave me a wink and whispered loudly: “Hey! Why you say he just friend? This look on you face, his face, hah, not just friend! I right?” And then she broke into gales of belly laughter.

  After dinner, on cue, George and the boys went to the family room to watch Star Trek. Kwan told Simon and me to come to the living room; she had something important to say. We sat down on the couch, Kwan in her easy chair. She pointed to the fake fireplace with its gas heater insert.

  “Too cold?” she asked.

  We shook our heads.

  Kwan folded her hands in her lap. “Simon,” she said, smiling like a genie, “tell me—you like my little sister, ah?”

  “Kwan,” I warned, but Simon was already answering her: “Very much.”

  “Hmm-mm.” She looked as pleased as a cat after a tongue bath. “Even you don’t tell me, I already see this. Mm-hmm . . . You know why?”

  “I guess it’s apparent,” Simon said with a sheepish grin.

  “No-no, you parent not telling me. I know—in here,” and she tapped her forehead. “I have yin eyes, mm-hm, yin eyes.”

  Simon gave me a searching look, as if to ask, Help me out, Olivia— what’s going on? I shrugged.

  “Look there.” Kwan was pointing to the fireplace. “Simon, what you see?”

  He leaned forward, then made a stab at what he must have thought was a Chinese game. “You mean those red candles?”

  “No-no, you see fireplace. I right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Over there, a fireplace.”

  “You see fireplace. I see something else. A yin person standing there, somebody already dead.”

  Simon laughed. “Dead? You mean like a ghost?”

  “Mm-hm. She say her name—Elsie.” Good old Kwan, she accidentally said Elza’s name wrong in exactly the right way. “Simon-ah, maybe you know this girl Elsie? She saying she know you, mm-hm.”

  His smile gone, Simon now sat forward. “Elza?”

  “Oh, now she sooo happy you remember her.” Kwan poised her ear toward the imaginary Elza, listening attentively. “Ah? . . . Ah. Okay-okay.” She turned back to us. “She saying you won’t believe, she already meet many famous music people, all dead too.” She consulted the fireplace. “Oh? . . . Oh . . . Oh! . . . Ah, ah. No-no, stop, Elsie, too many name! You saying so many famous people name I can’t repeat! Okay, one . . . Showman? No? I not pronouncing right?”

  “Chopin?” I hinted.

  “Yes-yes. Chopin too. But this one she say name like Showman. . . . Oh! Now understand—Schumann!”

  Simon was mesmerized. I was impressed. I didn’t know before that Kwan knew anything about classical music. Her favorite songs were country-western tunes about heartbroken women.

  “She also saying so happy now meet her mother, father, big brother. She mean other family, not adopt-her one. Her real name she say sound like Wawaski, Wakowski, I think Japanese name. . . . Oh? Not Japanese? . . . Mm. She say Polish. Polish-Jewish. What? . . . Oh, okay. She saying her family die long time ago, because auto in ditch.”

  “Auschwitz,” I said.

  “No-no. Auto in ditch. Yes-yes, I right, auto go in ditch, turn over, crash!” Kwan cupped her right ear. “Lots time, beginning very hard understand what yin person saying. Too excited, talk too fast. Ah? . . .” She cocked her head slightly. “Now she saying, grandparents, they die this place, Auschwitz, wartime Poland.” Kwan looked at me and gave me a wink, then quickly turned back to the fireplace with a surprised and concerned expression. “Ai-ya! Tst! Tst! Elsie, you suffer too much. So sad. Oh.” Kwan touched her knee. “She saying, auto accident, this how she got scar on her little baby leg.”

  I didn’t think I had written down that detail about Elza’s scar. But I must have, and was glad I had. It added a nice authentic touch.

  Simon blurted out a question: “Elza, the baby. What about the baby you were going to have? Is it with you?”

  Kwan looked at the fireplace, puzzled, and I held my breath. Shit! I forgot to mention the damn baby. Kwan concentrated on the fireplace. “Okay-okay.” She turned to us and brushed the air with one nonchalant hand. “Elsie say no problem, don’t worry. She met this person, very nice person suppose be her baby. He not born yet, so didn’t die. He have only small waiting time, now already born someone else.”

  I exhaled in relief. But then I saw that Kwan was staring at the fireplace with a worried face. She was frowning, shaking her head. And just as she did this, the top of my head began to tingle and I saw sparks fly around the fireplace.

  “Ah,” Kwan said quietly, more hesitantly. “Now Elsie saying you, Simon, you must no longer think about her. . . . Ah? Mm-hm. This wrong, yes-yes—too much waste you life think about her. . . . Ah? Hm. You must forget her, she say, yes, forget!—never say her name. She have new life now. Chopin, Schumann, her mommy, daddy. You have new life too. . . .”

  And then Kwan told Simon that he should grab me before it was too late, that I was his true-love girl, that he’d be forever sorry if he missed this good chance of many lifetimes. She went on and on about how honest and sincere I was, how kind, how loyal, how smart. “Oh, maybe she not so good cook, not yet, but you patient, wait and see. If not, I teach her.”

  Simon was nodding, taking it all in, looking sad and grateful at the same time. I should have been ecstatic right then, but I was nauseated. Because I also had seen Elza. I had heard her.

  She wasn’t like the ghosts I saw in my childhood. She was a billion sparks containing every thought and emotion she’d ever had. She was a cyclone of static, dancing around the room, pleading with Simon to hear her. I knew all this with my one hundred secret senses. With a snake’s tongue, I felt the heat of her desire to be seen. With the wing of a bat, I knew where she fluttered, hovering near Simon, avoiding me. With my tingly skin, I felt every tear she wept as a lightning bolt against my heart. With the single hair of a flower, I felt her tremble, as she waited for Simon to hear her. Except I was the one who heard her—not with my ears but with the tingly spot on top of my brain, where you know something is true but still you don’t want to believe it. And her feelings were not what came out of Kwan’s well-meaning mouth. She was pleading, crying, saying over and over again: “Simon, don’t forget me. Wait for me. I’m coming back.”

  I NEVER TOLD KWAN what I saw or heard. For one thing, I didn’t want to believe it was anything but a hallucination. Yet over
these last seventeen years, I’ve come to know that the heart has a will of its own, no matter what you wish, no matter how often you pull out the roots of your worst fears. Like ivy, they creep back, latching on to the chambers in your heart, leeching out the safety of your soul, then slithering through your veins and out your pores. On countless nights, I’ve awakened in the dark with a recurring fever, my mind whirling, scared about the truth. Did Kwan hear what I heard? Did she lie for my sake? If Simon found out we’d tricked him, what would he do? Would he realize he didn’t love me?

  On and on the questions came, and I let them pile up, until I was certain our marriage was doomed, that Elza would pull it down. It was an avalanche waiting to happen, balanced on one dangerous and slippery question: Why are we together?

  And then the sun would climb above the sill. Morning light would make me squint. I’d look at the clock. I’d rise and touch the faucets of the shower. I’d adjust the hot and the cold, then awaken my mind with water sprayed hard against my skin. And I’d be grateful to return to what was real and routine, confined to the ordinary senses I could trust.

  8

  THE CATCHER OF GHOSTS

  I had the Internal Revenue Service to thank for leading us to the altar.

  We had been living together for three years, two of those post-college. In keeping with our shared dream to “make a substantive difference,” we worked in the human services field. Simon was a counselor for Clean Break, which helped troubled teens with criminal records. I was an outreach worker for Another Chance, a program for pregnant drug addicts. We didn’t earn much, but after we saw how much withholding tax the IRS took out of our monthly paychecks, we calculated how much we would save if we filed a joint return: a whole three hundred forty-six dollars a year!

  With this sum dangling before our impoverished eyes, we debated whether it was right for the government to favor married couples. We both agreed that taxes were an insidious form of government coercion. But why give the government three hundred forty-six dollars to buy more weapons? We could use that money to buy new stereo speakers. It was definitely Simon who suggested we get married, I remember. “What do you think?” he said. “Should we be co-opted and file jointly?”

  The wedding took place near the Rhododendron Gardens of Golden Gate Park, a site we figured was both free and romantically al fresco. But that June day, the fog rolled in on an arctic breeze, whipping our clothes and hair around, so that in the wedding photos we and our guests look deranged. While the Universal Life Church minister was intoning the blessing of the marriage, a park official announced loudly, “Excuse me, folks, but you need a permit to hold a gathering like this.” So we rushed through the exchange of vows, packed up the wedding picnic and gifts, and hauled them back to our cramped apartment on Stanyan Street.

  As icing to our ruined cake, the wedding gifts included none of the practical things we desperately needed to replace our ragtag assortment of sheets, towels, and kitchenware. Most of our friends provided joke gifts of the marital-aids variety. My former stepfather, Bob, gave us a crystal vase. Simon’s parents presented us with an engraved sterling tray.

  The rest of my family tried to outdo one another in finding that “special something” that our future grandchildren would inherit as heirlooms. From my mother, it was an original metal sculpture of a man and woman embracing, a work of art that Bharat Singh, her boyfriend of the moment, had made. My brother Tommy supplied us with a vintage pachinko machine, which he played every time he visited. Kevin gave us a case of red wine, which we were supposed to let age fifty years. But after a few impromptu weekend parties with friends, we had a fine collection of empty bottles.

  Kwan’s gift was actually quite beautiful, surprisingly so. It was a Chinese rosewood box with a carved lid. When I lifted the lid, the music of “The Way We Were” broke out in a stiff and mindless rhythm. In the jewelry compartment was a package of tea. “Make good feeling last long time,” Kwan explained, and gave me a knowing look.

  FOR THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS of our marriage, Simon and I went out of our way to agree on almost everything. For the next seven, we seemed to do the opposite. We didn’t debate as he and Elza had on important issues, such as due process, affirmative action, and welfare reform. We argued over petty matters: Does food taste better if you heat the pan before putting olive oil in it? Simon yes, me no. We didn’t have blowouts. But we squabbled often, as if from habit. And this made us ill-tempered with each other, less than loving.

  As to our hopes, our dreams, our secret desires, we couldn’t talk about those. They were too vague, too frightening, too important. And so they stayed inside us, growing like a cancer, a body eating away at itself.

  In retrospect, I’m amazed how long our marriage lasted. I wonder about the marriages of other people, our friends, if they continue out of habit, or lethargy, or some strange combination of fear feeding into hope, then hope unleashing fear. I never thought our marriage was worse than anyone else’s. In some respects, I felt ours was better than most. We made a nice-looking couple at dinner parties. We kept our bodies in shape, had a decent sex life. And we had one very big thing in common, our own business, public relations, mostly for nonprofit and medical groups.

  Over the years, we developed a steady roster of clients—the National Kidney Foundation, the Brain Tumor Research Foundation, Paws for a Cause, a couple of hospitals, and one lucrative account, a sleaze-ball clinic that insisted on print ads using a lot of before-and-after photos of liposucted female buttocks. Simon and I worked out of a room in our apartment. I was the photographer, designer, desktop typographer, and pasteup artist. Simon was the copywriter, client manager, print buyer, and accounts receivable department. In matters of aesthetics, we treated each other with careful respect. We sought agreement in brochure layouts, type sizes, and headlines. We were extremely professional.

  Our friends used to say, “You two are so lucky.” And for years I wanted to believe we were as lucky as they enviously thought we were. I reasoned that the quarrels we had were only minor irritations, like slivers under the skin, dents on the car, easy enough to remove once we got around to it.

  And then, almost three years ago now, Dudley, my godfather, a retired accountant whom I hadn’t seen since babyhood, died and left me stocks in a small gene-splicing company. They weren’t worth much when he died. But by the time the executor passed them along to me, the gene company had gone public, the stocks had split a couple of times, and thanks to the commercial miracles of DNA, Simon and I had enough money to buy, even with inflated San Francisco prices, a decent house in a terrific neighborhood. We did, that is, until my mother suggested that I share my luck with my brothers and Kwan. After all, she pointed out, Dudley was Daddy’s friend and not anyone I had been especially close to. She was right, but I was hoping Kevin, Tommy, and Kwan would say, “Keep it, thanks for the thought.” So much for hope. The one who surprised me the most was Kwan. She shrieked and danced like a contestant on Wheel of Fortune. After we cut up the inheritance pie and removed a hefty wedge for taxes, Simon and I had enough for a down payment on a modest house in an iffy neighborhood.

  As a result, our search for a home took more than a year. Simon had suggested a 1950s fixer-upper in the fog-ridden Sunset district, which he thought we could sell in a few years for double our investment. What I had in mind was more of a shabby Victorian in up-and-coming Bernal Heights, a place we could remodel as home sweet home and not an investment. “You mean hovel sweet hovel,” Simon said, after viewing one property.

  We didn’t see eye to eye on what we called “future potential.” The potential, of course, had more to do with us. We both knew that living in a small dump required the kind of fresh, exuberant love in which nothing mattered except happily snuggling for warmth in the same cramped double bed. Simon and I had long before progressed to a king-size bed and an electric blanket with dual controls.

  One foggy summer Sunday, we spotted an Open House sign for a co-op in a six-unit building on the fri
nge of Pacific Heights. By fringe, I mean that it was hanging on to neighborhood chic by a tattered thread. The building’s backside rested in the Western Addition, where windows and doors were covered with saw-proof steel bars. And it was fully three blocks and two tax brackets away from the better streets of Pacific Heights, populated by families who could afford dog-walkers, au pairs, and two second homes.

  In the common hallway, Simon picked up a sales leaflet riddled with hyphenated disclaimers. “ ‘A semi-luxurious, bi-level, lower Pacific Heights co-op,’ ” he read out loud, “ ‘located in a prestigious, once-grandiose Victorian mansion constructed in 1893 by the quite-famous architect Archibald Meyhew.’ ” Amazingly, the leaflet also boasted of ten rooms and a parking space, all for an asking price only a tad out of our budget. Everything else we had seen that was affordable had no more than five rooms, six if it lacked a garage.

  I rang the bell for unit five. “It’s a good price for the neighborhood,” I remarked.

  “It’s not even a condo,” said Simon. “With co-ops, I hear you have to go by loony rules to even change the wattage of your light bulbs.”

  “Look at that banister. I wonder if it’s the original woodwork. Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “It’s faux. You can tell by the lighter swirls. They’re too regular.”

  Since Simon seemed to be quashing all interest in the place, I was going to suggest we leave. But then we heard rapid footsteps on the staircase and a man calling: “I’ll be with you in a sec.” Simon casually clasped his hand around mine. I couldn’t remember the last time he had done that. Despite his criticisms, he must have liked the building’s possibilities, enough anyway to want us to have the appearance of a happily married couple, sturdy in our finances, sufficiently stable to last through the escrow period.